SYNOPSIS

VERSION

DESCRIPTION

npm is the package manager for the Node JavaScript platform. It puts
modules in place so that node can find them, and manages dependency
conflicts intelligently.

It is extremely configurable to support a wide variety of use cases.
Most commonly, it is used to publish, discover, install, and develop node
programs.

Run npm help to get a list of available commands.

INTRODUCTION

You probably got npm because you want to install stuff.

Use npm install blerg to install the latest version of "blerg". Check out
npm-install(1) for more info. It can do a lot of stuff.

Use the npm search command to show everything that's available.
Use npm ls to show everything you've installed.

DEPENDENCIES

If a package references to another package with a git URL, npm depends
on a preinstalled git.

If one of the packages npm tries to install is a native node module and
requires compiling of C++ Code, npm will use
node-gyp for that task.
For a Unix system, node-gyp
needs Python, make and a buildchain like GCC. On Windows,
Python and Microsoft Visual Studio C++ are needed. Python 3 is
not supported by node-gyp.
For more information visit
the node-gyp repository and
the node-gyp Wiki.

DIRECTORIES

global mode:npm installs packages into the install prefix at
prefix/lib/node_modules and bins are installed in prefix/bin.

local mode:npm installs packages into the current project directory, which
defaults to the current working directory. Packages are installed to
./node_modules, and bins are installed to ./node_modules/.bin.

Local mode is the default. Use -g or --global on any command to
operate in global mode instead.

DEVELOPER USAGE

If you're using npm to develop and publish your code, check out the
following help topics:

link:
For linking your current working code into Node's path, so that you
don't have to reinstall every time you make a change. Use
npm link to do this.

install:
It's a good idea to install things if you don't need the symbolic link.
Especially, installing other peoples code from the registry is done via
npm install

adduser:
Create an account or log in. Credentials are stored in the
user config file.

publish:
Use the npm publish command to upload your code to the registry.

CONFIGURATION

npm is extremely configurable. It reads its configuration options from
5 places.

Command line switches:Set a config with --key val. All keys take a value, even if they
are booleans (the config parser doesn't know what the options are at
the time of parsing.) If no value is provided, then the option is set
to boolean true.

Environment Variables:Set any config by prefixing the name in an environment variable with
npm_config_. For example, export npm_config_key=val.

User Configs:The file at $HOME/.npmrc is an ini-formatted list of configs. If
present, it is parsed. If the userconfig option is set in the cli
or env, then that will be used instead.

Global Configs:The file found at ../etc/npmrc (from the node executable, by default
this resolves to /usr/local/etc/npmrc) will be parsed if it is found.
If the globalconfig option is set in the cli, env, or user config,
then that file is parsed instead.

Defaults:npm's default configuration options are defined in
lib/utils/config-defs.js. These must not be changed.